At 5 a.m. on November 19, 2020, at the Coles distribution center in Smeaton Grange, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 350 workers stopped work, opposing the announcement that the plant would be fully automated at an unspecified date in the coming years. In response, Coles management soon called a lockout that was initially scheduled to last until February 11, 2021.

In the face of this attack, workers - and the United Workers Union in which they were organized - responded by initiating one of the longest strikes in Australia’s recent history. After 14 long weeks, the strike ended on February 27, 2021: 71% of the vote was in favor of reaching an agreement, dubbed the "Coles Smeaton Grange (UWU) Regional Distribution Centre Enterprise Agreement 2020".

Coles is an Australian supermarket chain with 100 thousand employees that operates under a national duopoly, since together with its competitor Woolworths it holds 80% of the distribution market in Australia.

Despite the historic duration of the strike and its importance, given that its outcome will play a crucial role in determining how Coles will deal with the automation of its other stores in the future, the bourgeois press, even the left-wing press, has essentially - and deliberately - ignored it.

Far from being the victory of historic magnitude as the UWU proclaimed, the manner in which the strike was conducted and the concluding agreement represent a searing defeat for workers. The great fervor of workers’ struggle was completely wasted.

The strikers were supported with only 60-70 Australian dollars (AuD) per head per week by a union with 300 million in assets, about 90-100 million in liquid funds, and about 100 million in annual dues. Some were forced to sell their homes; others ended up separating from their spouses.

UWU officials have consistently intimidated workers by fearing disciplinary action and police intervention, demanding that the picket line at Smeaton Grange be broken up. They were careful not to organize at the other Coles distribution centers the most basic of protests, despite the UWU’s organized presence at all plants. They argued with the police behind the scenes without consulting the workers, promising that the picket line would be short-lived. According to a member of a grassroots group of strikers - the Concerned Workers Smeaton Grange (CWSG) - although the NSW police did not show interest in intervening, UWU unionists still successfully urged workers to break the ongoing roadblock and simply rail at trucks entering and leaving the plant.

Solidarity strikes and "hard" picketing are illegal in Australia’s corporate system of labor relations called "Fair Work", introduced in 2009, but there as elsewhere the anti-strike law is a paper tiger in the face of sufficiently strong action.

In 2012, at a Coles distribution center in Melbourne, members of the National Union of Workers (NUW), which would later merge with United Voice to form the UWU in 2019, won their battle through determined picketing, despite a court order declaring it illegal and ordering its revocation.

The Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) signed at the conclusion of the strike provides:
     - exit incentives for 50-80 workers, out of the total 350, while clauses 5, 36 and 38 praise the "mutual interest" of workers and bosses in increasing productivity;
     - workers who do not benefit from the redundancy incentive will be progressively laid off;
     - clauses 34.4.8-34.4.9, limit the payment of redundancy incentives to 52 weeks;
     - the promised redundancy payment will last 80 weeks, but it is to be seen whether Coles will opt for more disadvantageous resolutions for its profits when the closure process of the center will definitely start;
     - until layoff, workers will receive a wage increase of 3.5% per year for up to 3 years (the union had claimed a 5.5% increase), a pittance for workers short of reserves, if not in debt, because of the strike;
     - 1000 AuD signing bonus; the union demand was 5000 Aud; the issue of the 14 weeks of lost wages is absent from the text, despite the fact that it was Coles that forced the strike by choosing the lockout route.

In the meantime, the management is trying to flush out the most combative of the workers involved in the strike, labeling them as "extremist anti-worker socialists" and even as infiltrators of ASIO (the Australian spy services).

Ultimately the union acted as an obstacle rather than a collective condenser of resources: there was no tangible support, no strike funds, no contributions to members, no solidarity action in other workplaces, while there was a suspension of picketing and attempts to gain the support of other Coles workers. Coles management and investors are right in being satisfied. Meanwhile, unionists are complaining that union membership in Australia has inexplicably dropped to 9%!

From the other UWU trade federations, no critical voices have been raised against the agreement. The UWU Hospo Voice, the tourism and catering federation, even said it was none of their business. According to one CWSG member, some leaders of the Sydney Seafarers’ Federation - the Maritime Union of Australia - privately voiced sharp criticism of the handling of the Smeaton Grange strike but chose not to express it publicly in order to maintain union unity. So much for uniting workers over divisions between companies and categories!

Pakistan

On February 10, a strike was called in Islamabad by the All Government Employees Grand Alliance (AGEGA) union, which organizes federal government employees, essentially demanding a substantial wage increase, adequate health care and standing against the privatization process.

The workers who took to the streets marched to the press club, despite the fact that several union leaders had been arrested the previous day. Their union headquarters in Islamabad was attacked by police who used tear gas in an attempt to clear the premises. Workers who came to defend it were pelted with rubber bullets. In several areas of the city there were bitter clashes between workers and police. Some highways, such as the Kashmir highway, were blocked.

"A well-armed contingent of police, including riot units and the anti-terrorism department were deployed on Constitution Avenue and in the Red Zone, and paramilitary troops in government buildings", this is what newspapers write, and that more than a thousand tear gas shells were fired. The Minister of Interior, responding to questions from journalists, with sarcasm and intimidation declared: "we have never used so many tear gas, many more are ready".

It should be pointed out how in the streets the federal employees of the capital, if they found the harsh repression of the government, were able to react by organizing and defending themselves. In two hundred were arrested.

In the bourgeois camp, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) a conservative political movement, today aligned against the government of Imran Khan, has cautiously stood up for the striking workers describing their movement as against "neo-liberalism". The truth is that this, like the other organizations of the ruling classes, will not hesitate, when they have the opportunity and the demands of Capital require it, to attack the living and working conditions of the wage-earners.

The next day the workers continued their protest. Federal offices in the capital remained closed. Other unions, denouncing the violence, joined the strike in several cities in Pakistan. Adhesions were registered in North Waziristan, Belucistan and Sindh province, but also in several districts such as Dasu Kohistan. In Punjab, civil servants from various areas including electricity and railway workers, represented by their respective unions, joined the strike. A substantial number of strikes and demonstrations in favor of the workers brutally attacked by the police show us a significant, as well as fundamental, worker solidarity.

The next day, with unusual haste, the government approved a wage increase for federal workers, following which the unions ended the protest in Islamabad. The salary was increased up to 25%. The initial demand was 40 percent. Workers who had been imprisoned were released and lawsuits dismissed. An achievement due to struggle and solidarity memberships.

These days have been an important lesson for the entire working class of Pakistan, which will have to understand more and more how their unity in the struggle, through sincere and combative class organizations that nurture workers’ solidarity, are fundamental conditions to oppose the attacks of governments of all political colors.

Serbia

On April 24, the strike resumed at FCA Plastic in Kragujevac, Serbia, which employs 90 workers and supplies bumpers to the plant in the same town where the Fiat 500L is assembled. FCA Serbia is 66% owned by Stellantis and the remaining 37% by the State of Serbia. FCA Plastic is now part of Stellantis, although it enjoys a certain autonomy.

The strike continues the struggle that began last December over the new company contract. The points in dispute are the anti-strike clause that prohibits the use of collective abstention from work for three years and the amount of the production bonus.

The workers of FCA Plastic are members of Savez samostalnih sindikata Srbije (SSSS), the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, the largest confederation of the regime in the country, which succeeded the old union controlled by the Tito party and from which it inherited most of the structure. This is the majority union in the FCA Serbia, while a minority of workers is part of the Ujedinjeni granski sindikati "Nezavisnost" (Ugs-N), Union of Trade Unions "Independence", another trade union confederation of the regime born from a split from the SSSS in the ’90s, a reflection of the struggle between the opposing pro-Milošević and pro-Western bourgeois factions.

While at FCA Serbia workers accepted a company contract - obtained according to the FCA Plastic Strike Committee by "dirty methods" - at the latter the SSSS section refused to sign. In response, in January, the company management, in order to blackmail and intimidate the workers, reduced the wages of holidays and that of production stoppage (a kind of layoff) due to overproduction, exacerbated by Covid 19.

After a series of one-hour warning strikes in January and February, following the failure of negotiations on February 18, 90% of the workers went on strike. This first strike lasted a full month, ending on March 24, when the company paid the dues related to the days of production stoppage, but reduced according to the January decision.

On April 24, according to the words of the struggle committee, the workers decided to radicalize the strike, resuming it and accompanying it with demonstrations under the city hall.

The company refused any compromise, despite the fact that the strike soon ended up leading to the blocking of activity at the FCA Serbia plant as well. The company has thus started to move some machinery from the FCA Plastic plant to the FCA Serbia plant. At the same time it started circulating rumours about redundancies in the striking factory.

No solidarity came from the SSSS section of the "mother" factory.

The Strike Committee for the time being proclaims its intention to continue the struggle, but it is clear that under these conditions the only chance of success would lie in extending the strike to the assembly plant of FCA Serbia, something that the majority union - Savez samostalnih sindikata Srbije (SSSS) - is careful not to do, having supported the approval of a company agreement similar to the one contested at FCA Plastic.

The workers’ movement in Serbia is no exception: the crucial issue is the defeat of regime unionism through the rebirth of the class union.

Spain

In pandemic-hit Spain, the government instituted a fairly strict confinement that lasted until May. This had serious economic consequences. About 4 million workers - out of a national total of 20 million - were put on "temporary" rest, but for 800,000 of these it was permanent. The government instituted a layoff freeze, but, of course, companies were often able to circumvent it.

Since May, the confinement measures have been gradually relaxed, until the return to normal on June 21. This contributed to a second wave of the pandemic, which peaked in October. This time, the confinement measures were softer: curfew from 11 a.m. to 6 a.m., some restriction on mobility, limits on gatherings. The government then tried to safeguard the Christmas shopping season, another factor that contributed to a new upsurge of the pandemic, after a partial downturn in November.

Museums and tourist attractions considered non-essential were closed during the first shutdown and workers temporarily laid off. At the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, there was already discontent among workers prior to the virus, who had thus organized in good numbers into a small grassroots union, the SUT, Solidaridad y Unidad de los Trabajadores. However, the Works Council - a kind of factory council that in Spain is provided for workplaces with more than 50 workers - was all in the hands of the regime union UGT, Union General de Trabajadores.

Even in Spain in the grassroots unionism there is a debate about whether or not to participate in these bodies of corporate representation of workers. For example, the anarcho-syndicalist-led CNT (Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo) does not participate, but the SUT does, even though it correctly believes that the center of union life should not be the company.

Among the main reasons for the dissatisfaction of the workers of the Sagrada Familia were the fixed-term contracts of three years - in violation of the same law - the lack of a schedule of shifts, often communicated or changed at the last moment - in violation of the collective bargaining agreement - the payment of holiday work without a surcharge, the constant delay in the payment of wages, the prohibition for workers to be able to sit for the entire 6-hour shift.

When the facility reopened to visitors, conditions worsened even further: several workers were transferred without notice to other sites; overtime was not paid; vacation shifts were no longer granted to allow for rest; and the company refused to explain various errors on payroll. But the most serious thing was that only a small portion of the retired workers were called back to work, resulting in a heavy increase in loads: for example, before the pandemic 40 workers handled an influx of 1,500-2,000 visitors per hour; in September the company had reduced the workers to 6 for an influx of 1,000 visitors per hour, 4 times as many.

On September 26, the workers went on all-out strike with three demands: permanent contract, shift scheduling, and recall of all active workers.

The company responded by replacing the strikers with private security personnel. The pickets were constantly threatened by the police, until a violent confrontation ensued on the last day the site was open, November 7.

This was followed by the new period of closure due to the measures against the pandemic until December 16 when the company announced the dismissal of 231 workers and the transfer of another 55 to another site, all based on an agreement with the Works Council, i.e. the UGT.

A small example of how phony and hypocritical democracy proves to be when the workers return to the struggle, with means and tools proper to class unionism, and how their wider organization is needed.